Cleanup of mold exacting project

No lone standard for remediation

Officials grappling with mold-infected buildings in Kane and Lake Counties must decide whether to spend years and maybe millions of dollars to try and save the structures or walk away and rebuild.

Experts say safely ridding a building of large deposits of mold is possible, but the work is technically exacting and must be done in somewhat of a vacuum because there is no single industry or governmental standard on the best way to do it.

Options on what to do with the shuttered St. Charles East High School in Kane County and an 88-unit apartment building in Mundelein are being weighed. Many people are questioning whether the school can be salvaged.

Cleanups require trained professionals to remove mold and moldy items, containing them so they don't contaminate anything, and to test whether microscopic spores remain in the air or on seemingly clean surfaces.

A moldy building can be remediated, say experts, among them public health microbiologist Eugene Cole of DynCorp. Health Research Services, a technology research firm in Durham, N.C.

"Absolutely, it can be done, but carefully," said Cole, who is an adviser to the remediation industry on mold growth.

A lack of understanding of mold ecology--how mold grows and spreads and what it takes to get rid of it--can lead to mistakes during remediation.

For instance, high-speed fans are often used to dry soaked walls or wet materials without isolating them first. Such tactics distribute mold spores throughout a building and into previously uncontaminated areas.

"This sort of thing is not unusual," Cole said. "The key to preventing these occurrences is constant education, proper training and national certification."

Dried, seemingly lifeless mold is a health hazard because it can give off mold spores that can cause reactions in susceptible people. Many people mistakenly think that mold has been eliminated just because an area has been dried.

Cole advocates a three-step approach to remediation, one that is being considered as a possible trade standard. It calls for an investigation into the extent of the mold growth, a careful and extensive cleanup, and a final clearance test to ensure a building is safe.

Mold is not a serious problem when it is growing on a shower wall or a faucet. In those spots, it can be wiped off using a household bathroom cleaner and kept off with regular and thorough housekeeping.

But extensive mold growth that is the result of chronic water leakage or flooding needs to be taken seriously, scientists say, and requires professional attention.

"If you have wet buildings and you see mold, you are just seeing the tip of the iceberg. It's going to be in drywall, behind base cabinets, you name it," said James Holland, president of Restoration Consultants, a Sacramento firm that trains and certifies workers in mold cleanup.

Typically, moldy porous materials, such as ceiling tiles, carpet, upholstered furniture and wallboard, are removed and disposed of by wrapping them in thick, plastic sheeting.

Removal and cleanup are done in pressurized and sealed rooms so mold spores cannot escape. Workers wear protective gear that covers skin, nose and eyes. For areas that can be cleaned, special equipment is used, such as wet vacuums, high-efficiency particulate air vacuums and mold-killing chemicals.

Heating and air conditioning systems also must be cleaned and/or replaced and maintained to ensure proper air flow.

Even mold found growing behind drywall and on the underlying structure of a building can be cleaned and the wall usually salvaged, Holland said.

`Doable process'

"There are many buildings that have been successfully remediated," he said. "This is a doable process."

One frequently cited example is the Martin County Courthouse in Stuart, Fla., which opened in 1989 but was vacated three years later because of mold. It reopened again in 1996.

Regular testing during the remediation work and at the end is a must, which is one reason that the courthouse project is considered successful.

Holland cites another case in which workers noticed that certain rooms smelled musty but no mold could be seen. Testing showed the carpet had a bumper crop of spores--at least 1.5 billion per gram of dust. A gram of dust typically has about 100,000 mold spores, he said.

In order to limit mold growth, experts advise that anything that is flooded should be dried out within 24 to 48 hours.

For homeowners with mold in their residences, industry experts advise them not to worry about what kind of mold it is.

"If someone has obvious mold odor in their home and it is growing up the walls, it's less important to know what kind it is than to get rid of it," said Glenn Fellman, executive director of the Indoor Air Quality Association in Kensington, Md.